Nearly four months after the Supreme Court rejected their plea for de-criminalisation of gay sex, the NGO which is fighting for gay rights filed a curative petition before the court for reversal of its earlier order.
After the top court rejected their review petition on December 28, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community have no choice but to approach the same court through the curative petition.
Curative petition is the last judicial resort available for redressal of grievances in the apex court and it is normally hear by judges in-chamber without granting opportunity to parties to argue the case in an open court.
A bench headed by P Sathasivam agreed to consider the plea against its verdict criminalising homosexuality.
A group of senior lawyers who appear for for different parties in the case, mentioned before the bench for early hearing in an open court but the bench said that it will go through the documents and consider their plea.
The petitioners, including NGO Naz Foundation which has been spearheading the legal battle on behalf of the LGBT community, contended that there was an error in the judgment delivered on December 11 last year as it was based on old law.
"The judgment was reserved on March 27, 2012 but the verdict was delivered after around 21 months and during this period lots of changes took place including amendment in laws which were not considered by the bench which delivered the judgment," senior advocate Ashok Desai told the bench.
Other senior advocates Harish Salve, Mukul Rohatgi, Anand Grover and other lawyers also supported his submission and pleaded for an open court hearing.
They submitted that the case should have been heard by the Constitution bench instead of two-judge bench which heard and delivered the verdict on the controversial issue.
The apex court had earlier dismissed a batch of review petitions filed by the Centre and gay rights activists including noted filmmaker Shyam Benegal against its December 2013 verdict declaring gay sex an offence punishable up to life imprisonment.
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